Christmas Cookes: Butter Horns

One year when my mother wasn’t feeling up to baking Christmas cookies, my sister and I realized that one of us better get Mom’s special Christmas cookie recipe.  Since I had no kids at home and wasn‘t so busy at Christmas, I won the job.  The first year I made these, I was really nervous.  After all, who was I to think I could bake my family’s favorite Christmas cookie recipe as well as Mom?  Well, they got the seal of approval not only from Mom.  At work that year, a Christmas cookie contest was held amongst the lawyers, that the secretaries judged.  We secretaries, however, were encouraged to bring in our own creations to share with the office.  Everyone was so impressed with these cookies, that I was given a special prize at the lawyer’s competition, in effect, winning a Christmas cookie contest I didn’t even enter!  

My mother calls these Butter Horns, but everyone who has tasted them has commented that their Polish grandmother or Italian grandmother or German grandmother made something very similar to them, but not exactly the same.  So, here is my Irish mother’s recipe for Butter Horns.  (Guard it with your life!)

Dough                                                           
2 cups flour; ½ lb (2 sticks) butter or margarine; ¾ cup sour cream; 1 egg yolk                
Cookie Filling    
¾ cup sugar; ¾ cup chopped walnuts; 1 tbsp. Cinnamon;

Topping:  Powdered Sugar

Preheat over to 375°.  With fingers, work butter through the flour until flaky.  Add sour cream and egg yolk.  I use a wooden spoon until the mixture is doughy and then use my fingers until everything is absorbed.  Form a loaf, dust it with flour and wrap in tin foil or plastic wrap, which has also been generously dusted with flour.  Refrigerate overnight.

Remove dough from refrigerator, divide into 3 equal parts.  Roll out each part into a 12-inch round.  (I use a floured pie crust former, a zippered vinyl circle, that you put the dough in, zipper up, and roll out into a perfect circle.)  Cut each round into 12 pie-shaped pieces. (A sharp knife and good eye is useful, but I use a cake slice marker to do this.  You will still need to cut with a knife along the marks, but your pieces will be uniform.)  

After making the cuts in the round, sprinkle with ½ cup of the filling.  Roll each slice up from the wide side into a crescent shape.  Transfer to baking sheets.

Bake at 375° for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and place on cooling racks.  When cookies are cool, dust with powdered sugar with a flour sifter.  Place cooling racks on top of waxed paper or freezer paper, so you can re-cycle the excess sugar that falls while dusting.  (If you really have a sweet tooth, you can roll the cookies in the powdered sugar.)

Store in tightly lidded tins.  This dough can be frozen if you aren’t going to make them right away, but will last in the fridge for two weeks.  Makes 3 dozen cookies.